by Jessica Sims
I stared at him. Another week of misery. Of sheer exhaustion. Hallucinations that told me that my brain was shutting down. Of dragging myself through every hour of every day.
Another week in Josh’s arms.
But what if Andre didn’t want to wait? What if he changed his mind?
I couldn’t risk it. I leaned in and gave Josh another kiss. “I love you,” I told him softly. “I do. But I’m not changing my mind.”
He stared at me, his face cold. “I’m not going to sit back and let you ruin your life, Marie. This is a mistake. I know things about vampires that you don’t. This one’s not a nice guy. I don’t trust that he’s going to turn you. He’s just using you as his personal soda fountain—”
I suddenly remembered that Josh had bitten me, too. “At least he didn’t put a mate mark on me and then lie to me about it.”
“Fat lot of good it’s doing,” he said angrily. “Especially since you’re determined to run headlong into a vampire’s arms.”
“How could you do that to me? Stake your claim on me like I belong to you?”
“Last night you were quick to say you were mine. Are things different now that you’ve had a chance to sleep on it?”
Tears of frustration threatened to spill from my eyes. “Please. I have a chance at more time. You can’t ask me not to take it.”
“And I won’t,” he said, moving in to brush my tears away with his fingers. Then he kissed my forehead. “Let’s talk about it.”
He pressed more light kisses to my face, my nose, my cheek. Light, loving kisses of affection. God, I loved his kisses. He moved past me and gestured at the kitchen. “You should see what I brought you.”
I nodded, pretending that I was just about to follow him. When he moved into the kitchen, still talking, I tore down the stairs and raced across the lawn to my car. I got it started in record time and was backing out of my parking space just as he appeared at the head of the stairs, looking utterly furious.
I mouthed, “Sorry” as I peeled out of the parking lot.
After tonight, I’d have all eternity to make it up to him.
Chapter Fourteen
The sedan pulled up to a posh brownstone in an exclusive part of Southlake Town Square.
Not exactly what I’d pictured for a vampire, but it did scream “money.”
The driver nodded at the house on the end. “We’re here, miss.” He watched me with attentive eyes, his nostrils flaring every now and then to catch a scent, which told me he was some kind of shifter. He was big and burly, like half the shifters I knew of.
“Thank you,” I said quietly and opened the door, stepping out onto the curb. I moved to the steps of the brownstone, studying it. The exterior was neat and well maintained, with a box of white flowers hanging at one window. Very homey.
It didn’t scream vampire, but maybe that was the point.
I knocked, feeling anxious. What if I turned around and Josh was there to try and “rescue” me from the situation again? What would I do then?
But the door opened, and a smiling, beautifully dressed Andre gestured for me to enter. “Welcome, Marie. I’m so glad you could make it.”
I smiled brightly and stepped inside, feeling a bit like a fly that had stepped into the spider’s web. But that was silly, of course. I’d told him I’d wanted to be turned, and now I was here at his place. This had to be leading to something.
The interior of the house was just as elegant as the exterior, reminding me of something from an English painting—heavy, ornate, and austere. Deep cherrywood floors complemented the mahogany furniture. An oil painting hung on the far wall, and it looked like Andre in old-fashioned clothes, his hair in a long queue. That was . . . weird. “Nice place,” I said, since he was watching me expectantly.
Andre inclined his head at my compliment. “I appreciate fine things.”
I nodded again, unsure what to say to that. “I’m glad you wanted to see me again.”
“I did,” he agreed. His smile seemed a little more toothy than usual, and alarm bells went off in my head. “I am glad you could come tonight. Did you have to change your plans?”
I glanced around at his immaculate, barely-lived-in-more-like-a-museum home. “Actually, I had an opening in my schedule.”
“So no one is expecting you back?” he asked, moving toward a bottle of wine on the dining room table.
There went those alarm bells again. I followed behind him, hesitant. What to say? Did turning take a while? Was that why he was asking? “Well,” I hedged. “Actually, a friend is waiting for me. He wasn’t happy that I left, but you are my priority.”
“Oh? He?” Andre’s lips thinned.
Damn. “Just a friend,” I said quickly. “No one important.”
“He must not be, if you came to be with me in the middle of the night,” he said slowly, as if measuring out the words. “This pleases me.”
I didn’t care if it pleased him or not. “You said you had a surprise for me?” Might as well cut to the chase.
Andre grinned, and his teeth were definitely elongating. He poured me a glass of wine and held it out. “Shall we enjoy a nice drink first?”
I took the glass, and when he gestured toward the couch, I sat, still uneasy. To my surprise, Andre sat next to me. He didn’t have a wineglass. “I thought you said you wanted a drink?”
“Oh, I do.” He reached out and brushed a curl of my hair off my shoulder.
Skitters of alarm raced through me. This is what you wanted, I told myself. It’s what you wanted. What you wanted. I downed a big gulp of wine, feeling it burn in my throat. He was staring at my neck avidly, and I realized . . . that I didn’t want to feed him. The thought made my skin crawl with revulsion.
When he leaned in, I flinched away.
He pulled back, frowning at me. “Do you not want to be here with me, Marie?”
I set the glass down, wanting my hands to be free for some reason. “Not at all. I just . . . ” I forced a vulnerable look to my face. “It really hurt the last time. I’m a little frightened.”
A lot frightened.
He puffed up with pride, a pleased-with-himself smile curving his fanged mouth. His teeth grew to an enormous size, and he ran a finger down my bare shoulder, as if eyeing a tender morsel. “Then shall I lick you this time, my pet? I assure you that it won’t hurt that way.”
Oh, ugh. When he leaned in, I leaned away again. “May I know what my surprise is first? Or is the bite my surprise?”
He gave me a confused look. “The bite?”
“Are you going to turn me?” I asked baldly.
“Ah.” He barked a laugh. “No. Here it is.” He pulled a long velvet box out of an interior jacket pocket and offered it to me.
A necklace? I stared at the box, disappointment crashing through me.
“Perhaps if I enjoy tasting you again, we will move on to other things,” he continued. His tongue flicked out between his fangs, as if licking his lips.
Other things? Like . . . sex? And then what? If I had sex with him—ugh ugh ugh—and kept feeding him, then maybe he’d eventually decide to turn me?
“Do you plan on turning me at some point?” I asked softly.
He arched an eyebrow. “You do realize that vampire law states that any vampire who turns another must give away half his fortune to his fledgling? I’d have to like someone quite a bit to turn them.” He chuckled humorlessly, his cool hand skating down my arm. “That doesn’t mean I don’t like you, of course. It just means that I need to get to know you better first.”
He’d had four hundred years to get to know other girls, and he’d never turned anyone.
And he wasn’t going to turn me. I was just a convenient drink that he’d keep dangling the carrot in front of until one of us got bored. He’d give me a few more baubles and then call it a day, moving on to the next girl.
I wasn’t a potential mate, as Joshua had feared. I was the vampire equivalent of a booty call.
And now
I realized the biggest flaw in my plan. Since there was a hefty fee associated with turning a vampire, someone would really, really have to be in love with me to turn me.
And I was in love with Josh.
The surge of disappointment made me want to throw up. I wasn’t going to be turned after all. There wasn’t going to be a Get Out of Jail Free card. I was done. I was dying.
I was dead. It was just a matter of time.
Tears pricked at my eyes and I swiped at them, getting up from the couch. “I . . . don’t think I can do this.”
“Do what?” Andre got to his feet, his eyes taking on a menacing gleam.
“Feed you. So unless you want to turn me right now, this drinking fountain is closed for business.”
“Turn you? Tonight?” He laughed hard. “I’m afraid that I’d need a bit more persuasion before thinking along those lines, my dear.”
And there was that carrot again. “I need someone to turn me,” I told him through clenched teeth. “I’m dying.”
“Then perhaps we can come to an agreement,” he said in a silky voice, taking a step toward me. “You feed me, and we’ll . . . talk about it.”
Yeah, right.
I shook my head. “I’m leaving.”
“You’re making a mistake,” he said warningly.
“This entire thing was a mistake,” I told him, my throat raw with unshed tears. My entire life was crashing down before my eyes. I’d been fired from my job, the only access that I had to the Paranormal Alliance. The one vampire that stood a chance of turning me was just using me, and the man I loved had asked me to trust him and I’d run away.
And I was still fucking dying.
“Good-bye, Andre,” I said, heading toward the door.
“Marie,” he warned, walking quickly behind me. “I’m not going to like it if you try to leave.”
Alarm raced through me. That sounded ominous. Even worse, it sounded like he was enjoying it. Vampires are predators, Josh had told me. They like to chase down their prey.
And here I was, running from him.
I picked up my pace. I just needed to get down the steps. He wouldn’t attack me out in the open.
But when I put my hand to the door, the knob wouldn’t turn. I jerked at it, confused. “What—”
Andre’s heavy body crashed into mine. He wrapped an arm around my neck, cutting off my air, and hauled me up against him. He was incredibly strong. My feet lifted off the ground and I kicked in alarm, realizing I couldn’t breathe.
“I told you I wouldn’t like it, little pet,” he said, and sank his teeth into my bare shoulder.
I screamed, but it came out as a gurgle, his arm was so tight around my neck. I couldn’t breathe. There was no air. Panic shredded at me as his teeth sank deeper into my skin, like claws ripping at my flesh. He sucked hard, blood running down my shoulder.
I twisted violently against him, but it was no use. My lungs ached and panicky lights began to flash behind my eyes. It wasn’t going to end like this, was it? Choked to death by a feeding vampire? I kicked feebly.
The world began to edge with black, and I dug my fingers at his arm, trying desperately to free myself. I . . . couldn’t . . . breathe . . .
Then everything went black.
• • •
A hand patted my cheek. “Are you okay?”
I stirred, my head throbbing, my throat aching. My shoulder felt like it’d been scraped raw. I opened my eyes into a dark room, lit only by a small night-light on the far side.
At my side, the person scuttled away and I sat up, turning to look at her. As I did, chains clinked and I frowned, putting my fingers to my neck. There was a metal collar around it with a chain attached. I looked over at the woman. “I’m chained?”
“We both are,” she said, and moved into the light of the night-light.
It was a human woman, her hair hanging about her in a tangled cloud, and what I could see of her face was hollow and unhappy. She wore a metal collar and a dirty bikini top.
She smelled, too. Like unwashed skin. I wrinkled my nose and scooted backward, hissing at the waves of pain the movement sent through me. I gingerly touched my shoulder and winced. “Asshole,” I muttered, trying to examine it in the low light. It felt raw as hell, but I couldn’t tell how bad it was. “Where are we?”
“In a wine cellar,” the woman said. The dim glow of the night-light revealed the long chain attached to a hook in the wall. “He keeps his meals down here.”
“Meals?” I repeated stupidly. “Who are you?”
“I’m Lily Faust.”
The name didn’t ring a bell. “Is Andre keeping you here . . . to turn you?”
She gave a mirthless laugh. “No. I’m his lunch when he can’t find anything else.” She raised one arm to the dim glow of the night-light, and I saw that her arm was riddled with bites. Big, ugly ones.
“Oh, my God,” I said. “He’s going to keep us chained in here?”
“For a short time,” she said softly. “Then I imagine he’ll get rid of one of us. He’s brought a few others down every now and then, but . . . I never see them after he takes them away. I don’t know if he lets them go, or something worse.”
Considering he kept a girl chained in his basement to feed on? I was going to go with “something worse.”
I stared up in the darkness. A crack of light upstairs told me that a light was on somewhere. “Are we . . . still in his house?”
“I don’t know,” Lily admitted. “I went out on a blind date with what I thought was a nice guy, and the next thing I knew, he was choking me. I woke up here. I’ve been here for . . . a while.”
I swallowed hard. “How long is a while?”
“What month is it?”
Oh, God. “May.”
She shuddered. “Six months. I suppose I should count myself lucky. The others never even last a few weeks.”
I didn’t have months, and an hysterical laugh bubbled in my throat.
“What’s so funny?” Lily stared at me.
“I’m dying,” I choked out. “Fatal disease.” When she scooted away, I added, “Not contagious. I just find it ironic that he kidnapped a dying woman. Guess he’s in for a rude surprise.”
“Is there anyone who’s going to come looking for you?” she asked. “My family’s dead. I don’t have anyone, and I was at college. I think that’s why he snatched me. Easy pickings.”
I thought of Josh. His look of betrayal as I’d run away from him tonight. God, I was an idiot. He’d known something was suspicious about Andre; he’d warned me not to go.
Just trust me. We’ll find a way.
And I’d thrown that trust in his face. I totally sucked at this relationship thing. “I don’t know if anyone will come looking for me.”
She sighed heavily, and I felt like echoing it.
“When will he be back?” I asked.
“He comes every day,” she said dully. “I guess when he’s hungry and needs something to snack on.”
I tugged at the collar around my throat, then looked up at the crack of light up the stairs that led out of this place. “Someone will come looking for us,” I told her, forcing bravery into my voice. “We can’t just go missing.”
Except my dad wouldn’t know where I was. Ryder, either. Bath and Sara would just assume I was avoiding their calls, since I’d been fired from the agency. If Josh didn’t come looking for me . . .
I stopped that line of thought. He had to come.
Had to.
I extended a hand in the darkness toward Lily. “We’re going to get out of here.”
She clasped her hand in mine, and I noticed how thin and fragile her hand was. “You don’t have to try and cheer me up. I’ve been here for six months. I know what our odds of being rescued are.”
• • •
A voice called my name, stirring me out of the darkness. “Marie,” I heard. “Marie!”
Hope surged in my chest. Josh!
But Lily still slept u
ndisturbed, huddled against me. Was . . . was it just a hallucination? I’d had several of them since being chained down here. I didn’t know how many hours had passed. Endless, tense hours, waiting for Andre to return.
“Marie!” he bellowed.
I licked my dry lips. Maybe this was real. “I’m here,” I called, my voice faint. I was thirsty and hungry, and weak from the loss of blood. When I tried to struggle to my feet, it was extremely difficult.
There were footsteps somewhere upstairs, then I heard a hand try the doorknob.
Lily woke up and gasped, scuttling into a shadowy corner of the room in terror.
A large body slammed against the door. Once, twice. Then it crashed open.
“Marie?” Josh asked, and I saw his glorious, wonderful silhouette, haloed by the lights.
“I’m here!” I said, still struggling to stand up. The chain at my neck felt as if it had weighed a hundred pounds. “Josh, I’m here!”
“Thank God.” He fumbled for a light switch, then cursed and moved down into the darkness. His eyes gleamed like a cat’s in the night, scanning the room. They lit on me, and I heard a feline growl start low in his throat. “Baby. What did he do to you?”
I was enveloped in warm, strong arms. I clung to him, burying my face in his chest as he kissed my hair, stroking it back from my face. I even cried. “You came after me!”
“Of course I did. Are you crazy? I’ve been worried sick about you.” His hand went to the collar at my throat, and the low, ominous growl started in his throat again. “What the fuck is this?”
I couldn’t seem to stop shivering, even with his warm arms enveloping me. I was so tired and cold and weak. “He’s keeping us down here. Like snacks.”
He lifted his nose and scented the air. “I thought I smelled someone else. Who’s here?”
“Another human girl,” I told him.
In the darkness, I heard Lily whimper. I didn’t know if it was a whimper of fear or a whimper of acknowledgment.
“I’m getting you both out of here,” Josh said roughly. He pressed a quick kiss to my forehead, then grasped the chain again, eyes gleaming in the darkness. “Where’s this linked to?”